university of maryland college park mfa creative writing

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Arts/Humanities

Creative Writing

Contact Information

The Graduate School, University of Maryland

2123 Lee Building 7809 Regents Drive College Park, MD 20742 301-405-3644 [email protected]

Creative Writing (CRWR)

Graduate Degree Program College: Arts and Humanities

The MFA in Creative Writing provides a professional course of study for graduate students seeking to perfect their ability to compose poems, stories, and novels. While primarily affording students intensive studio or practical work within their chosen genre, the MFA in Creative Writing requires that students incorporate such work with a traditional study of literature. The goal of the MFA in Creative Writing is to provide an atmosphere in which students can both hone their skills as writers and gain a theoretical and historical understanding of their craft.

The Department of English also offers graduate study leading to the Master of Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees in English Language and Literature . Please visit the English Language and Literature listing for more information.

Financial Assistance

Each year, the program accepts 8 applicants (4 fiction writers and 4 poets), who are fully funded by Teaching Assistantships, and, this current admissions cycle, we were able to enhance all 8 Teaching Assistantships with additional fellowship support. Our aid packages are typically 2-year agreements. As Teaching Assistants, our MFA students teach one class during their first year (in the spring semester) and three classes during their second year. Although a great deal of this teaching is Academic Writing (English 101), our MFA students are guaranteed at least one chance to teach an undergraduate creative writing workshop or to serve as a teaching assistant in an undergraduate literature course.

Lindsay Bernal Academic Coordinator Creative Writing Program Department of English 2116E Tawes Hall 7751 Alumni Drive Universtiy of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 Telephone: 301.405.3820 Email: [email protected] Joshua Weiner Director Creative Writing Program Department of English 3103 Tawes Hall 7751 Alumni Drive University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 Telephone: 301.405.3789 Email: [email protected]

Website: http://www.english.umd.edu/academics/creativewriting

Relationships: English Language and Literature (ENGL)

General Requirements

Program-Specific Requirements

In addition to fulfilling Graduate School requirements, applicants to the M.F.A. degree program should present a 3.0 GPA. Admission is for the Fall semester only. All application materials must be submitted electronically.

Application Deadlines

Resources and links:.

Program Website: http://www.english.umd.edu/academics/creativewriting Application Process: gradschool.umd.edu/admissions

Creative Writing, Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.)

Resources for research in the College Park and Washington, D.C. area are unsurpassed. The university’s libraries hold over 2,000,000 volumes. In addition to the outstanding holdings of the Library of Congress, the area also offers the specialized resources of the Folger Shakespeare Library, Dumbarton Oaks, the National Archives, the Smithsonian Institution, and the National Center for the Study of the Visual Arts. The university recently partnered with the Phillips Collection to create the University of Maryland Center for Art and Knowledge, a dynamic collaboration that includes new curriculum, experimental and community-focused education programs, a new Phillips Collection gallery and an open storage facility in College Park.

UMCP is a member of the Consortium of Institutions in the Washington area, which permits graduate students at College Park to enroll in courses at other universities for graduate credit at UMCP. Graduate students in English also may take courses for graduate credit at the Folger Institute of Renaissance and Eighteenth-Century Studies, which runs a series of seminars by distinguished scholars each year.

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Studio Art M.F.A

The M.F.A. program at Maryland allows artists the opportunity to dedicate three years to intensive studio practice and to the development of a strong conceptual and historical foundation to that practice.

The Masters of Fine Arts program at the University of Maryland is a three-year, 60 credit interdisciplinary program of study. The focus of this program is placed squarely on studio practice.

Students admitted into the program are provided a spacious private studio and access to state-of-the-art facilities in sculpture, digital-media and printmaking. Throughout the three-year course of study, M.F.A students spend the majority of their time working individually with our full-time faculty. Our faculty of practicing artists provide guidance and expertise in a variety of media. M.F.A candidates work on an individual basis with faculty members of their choosing, developing a conversation in which studio practice is discussed and works in progress are critiqued.

The M.F.A program at the University of Maryland emphasizes the need for strong conceptual and theoretical understanding of contemporary art practices. Bolstered by an active visiting artist lecture series and a graduate colloquium that brings in regional and national scholars and critics on an annual basis to work with M.F.A. candidates, students in the program are expected to maintain a strong studio practice and develop and strengthen the critical and conceptual discourse around which they create their work.

Situated within five miles of Washington, D.C., and less than 30 miles from Baltimore, MD, the University of Maryland offers M.F.A. candidates unparalleled access to some of the country's best art museums, galleries, performing arts centers and contemporary art institutions. In addition, the Department of Art maintains close ties to diverse areas of study within the university, including the performing arts, engineering, architecture, art history and archeology, among others. This allows candidates in our program to work with scholars from diverse media and have access to a diverse range of tools and technologies only available to those at large research institutions such as the University of Maryland.

See What our Current M.F.A. Students are up to

Visit the Current Students & Alumni page.

M.F.A. Assistantships, Fellowships and Awards

The majority of candidates in the M.F.A. program are also given the opportunity to gain teaching experience through departmental graduate assistantships. These GA positions, which include tuition remission and a stipend, are awarded on a competitive basis based on the strength of the applicant's portfolio and the needs of the department. In addition, the department offers numerous fellowships and awards to incoming and continuing M.F.A. candidates.

Graduate Level Departmental Awards

Each year, the Department of Art offers two special awards to exemplary M.F.A. students, who, through their creative endeavors and activity within the department, set new standards for the graduate program. The awards are:

The David C. Driskell Award of Excellence

This award is given to a graduating student for outstanding visual thesis, as well as for excellent teaching ability and overall service to the Department of Art. The award is made in honor of the late Professor Emeritus David C. Driskell. The recipient of this award is offered an adjunct faculty position for the course of the year following the recipient's successful graduation.

Daniel Nicholson Ohlke Memorial Fund Award

This monetary award aims to support the work of a promising graduate student who is entering their second year of study within the program.

Related Information

AY 2021-2022 MFA Program in Creative Writing and Alumni Updates

July 14, 2022 English

English default inset image

Alumni publications and recent placements.

Recent alumni book publications.

Released in AY 2021-2022

Recent Alumni Placements

Accepted in AY 2021-2022

Emily Banks (MFA, 2015) accepted a Visiting Assistant Professor position at Franklin College in Franklin, Indiana, beginning in Fall 2022. This is a three-year position with a potential tenure-track conversion in Creative Writing and American Literature.

Creative Writing

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Find details about every creative writing competition—including poetry contests, short story competitions, essay contests, awards for novels, grants for translators, and more—that we’ve published in the Grants & Awards section of Poets & Writers Magazine during the past year. We carefully review the practices and policies of each contest before including it in the Writing Contests database, the most trusted resource for legitimate writing contests available anywhere.

Find a home for your poems, stories, essays, and reviews by researching the publications vetted by our editorial staff. In the Literary Magazines database you’ll find editorial policies, submission guidelines, contact information—everything you need to know before submitting your work to the publications that share your vision for your work.

Whether you’re pursuing the publication of your first book or your fifth, use the Small Presses database to research potential publishers, including submission guidelines, tips from the editors, contact information, and more.

Research more than one hundred agents who represent poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers, plus details about the kinds of books they’re interested in representing, their clients, and the best way to contact them.

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Every week a new publishing professional shares advice, anecdotes, insights, and new ways of thinking about writing and the business of books.

Stay informed with reports from the world of writing contests, including news of extended deadlines, recent winners of notable awards, new contest announcements, interviews with winners, and more.

Since our founding in 1970, Poets & Writers has served as an information clearinghouse of all matters related to writing. While the range of inquiries has been broad, common themes have emerged over time. Our Top Topics for Writers addresses the most popular and pressing issues, including literary agents, copyright, MFA programs, and self-publishing.

Our series of subject-based handbooks (PDF format; $4.99 each) provide information and advice from authors, literary agents, editors, and publishers. Now available: The Poets & Writers Guide to Publicity and Promotion, The Poets & Writers Guide to the Book Deal, The Poets & Writers Guide to Literary Agents, The Poets & Writers Guide to MFA Programs, and The Poets & Writers Guide to Writing Contests.

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Find information about more than two hundred full- and low-residency programs in creative writing in our MFA Programs database, which includes details about deadlines, funding, class size, core faculty, and more. Also included is information about more than fifty MA and PhD programs.

Whether you are looking to meet up with fellow writers, agents, and editors, or trying to find the perfect environment to fuel your writing practice, the Conferences & Residencies is the essential resource for information about well over three hundred writing conferences, writers residencies, and literary festivals around the world.

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Search for jobs in education, publishing, the arts, and more within our free, frequently updated job listings for writers and poets.

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University of Maryland

MFA Program

Poetry: Elizabeth Arnold, Lillian-Yvonne Bertream, Joshua Weiner Fiction: Maud Casey, Gabrielle Lucille Fuentes, Emily Mitchell, Rion Amilcar Scott

The program offers full funding through teaching assistantships and fellowships.

The program hosts the Writers Here & Now reading series and an Artists-in-Residence program.

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Creative Writing Program

College Park, MD

Interested in University of Maryland, College Park? Admissions officers are waiting to hear from you!

Creative Writing Program / Creative Writing Program is located in College Park, MD, in a suburban setting.

Degrees & Awards

Degrees offered, degrees awarded, earning your degree, degree requirements, acceptance rate, application deadlines, entrance requirements, tuition & fees, financial support, student body, race/ethnicity, location & contact.

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COMMENTS

Creative Writing
Our Faculty ; Elizabeth Arnold. Professor, English. 3101 Tawes Hall College Park MD, 20742. (301) 405-9658 [email protected] ; Lindsay Bernal. Academic Coordinator
Creative Writing
Contact Program: www.english.umd.edu/academics/creativewriting/mfa ... College Park, MD 20742 301-405-3644 [email protected]
Creative Writing, Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) < University of Maryland
The M.F.A. degree program requires 36 credit hours of graduate work. The program balances courses in literature with writing workshops (30 hours), and requires
Creative Writing (CRWR) < University of Maryland
The MFA in Creative Writing provides a professional course of study for graduate students seeking to perfect their ability to compose poems, stories
Studio Art M.F.A
The Masters of Fine Arts program at the University of Maryland is a three-year, 60 credit interdisciplinary program of study. The focus of this program is
Writers Here and Now
The visits by writers include a public reading preceded by a reception at Queen Anne's Hall and classroom visits with MFA graduate students and undergraduate
AY 2021-2022 MFA Program in Creative Writing and Alumni Updates
This is a three-year position with a potential tenure-track conversion in Creative Writing and American Literature. UMD ARHU Logo. Department of English 2119
Creative Writing at the University of Maryland
Creative Writing at the University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland. 346 likes · 4 talking about this. A space for faculty, current students and...
University of Maryland
MFA Program ; Program Established: 1990 ; Location: College Park, MD ; Genre: Poetry, Fiction ; Residency: Full ; Duration: 2-3 Years.
Creative Writing Program
Degrees & Awards ; Degrees Offered · Concentration · Master of Arts (MA). Doctor of Philosophy (PhD). Master of Fine Arts (MFA) ; Degrees Awarded · Number Awarded